Resolved Western Digital external drive, Read diagnostics sector error

My Sister Owns a WD passport 500 GB external HD, which she uses as data disk since her laptop HD is only 40GB.

a few days ago she noticed, the drives icon is missing (in my computer):

1st thought was to check for viruses, neither AVG free nor Panda online scan found anything.
then i thought it might be one of the hidden files (desktop.ini, autobat.ini, ...) that was corrupted and needed to be deleted, to my surprise there was none.

i decided to back up the data and format the drive, as soon as i plugged to my desktop i got a message saying that the drive needs to be scanned. (there is only 25 GB of Data on it but the scan took over 5 hrs).
here are screen shots of the report:

i searched every sub-folder on the drive and could not find the alleged "found" folder.

there are 46 files (all pictures) in that log.



even after the scandisk i was unable to copy some of the files.
although i could view them with Vista default picture viewer:


im assuming those pictures are unrecoverable.
also is there a way to find out what caused all those bad sectors? (id like to be sure its user error and not the drive that is a dud)

 

Have you considered running the Western Digital diagnostic program on this drive? It is available on their support web site:Click Here

 

I hadn't thought of that ty scout321x, this isn't looking good here are the test results (from my desktop):

Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD5000BEVT-11ZAT0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WXNX08NC5444
Firmware Number: 01.01A01
Capacity: 500.11 GB
SMART Status: FAIL
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 4 did not complete! Status code = 04 (Unknown failed test element), Failure Checkpoint = 96 (Unknown Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 4!
Test Time: 05:59:17, October 19, 2009

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WDC WD5000BEVT-11ZAT0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WXNX08NC5444
Firmware Number: 01.01A01
Capacity: 500.11 GB
SMART Status: FAIL
Test Result: ABORT
Test Time: 06:05:25, October 19, 2009


Test Option: WRITE ZEROS
Model Number: WDC WD5000BEVT-11ZAT0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WXNX08NC5444
Firmware Number: 01.01A01
Capacity: 500.11 GB
SMART Status: FAIL
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 11-Cable Test::Read diagnostics sector error!
Test Time: 06:08:10, October 19, 2009

i figured i might as well see what happens when i try to run the tests from my sisters laptop (the PC that the drive in question connects to usually)

Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD5000BEVT-11ZAT0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WXNX08NC5444
Firmware Number: 01.01A01
Capacity: 500.11 GB
SMART Status: FAIL
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 11-Cable Test::Read diagnostics sector error!
Test Time: 06:31:03, October 19, 2009

that laptop has a history with USB devices (not enough power), so i guess that is the cause of our problem.

Anything else can be done?

 

first off, external hard drives can not use SMART testing (as far as i have seen). This might also be the reason why it can not complete testing using a diag tool, why this is the reason i dont really know, but i have seen it happen on 3/3 external drives.

2nd regardless of if your laptop can supply enough power via the usb or not holds no water for this problem since the external runs on its own power supply.

as far your AVG/PANDA those av's are less then 2nd rate, at the very lest run a FREE scan on kaspersky and download malwarebytes if your worried about a virus. As far as your icon, sometimes it vanishes or becomes unreadable.

to make a custom icon open notepad and enter
*[ autorun ]*
icon = .\ (name of picture).ico

remove the *'s and (name of picture is ofcourse the name of the picture)

*ico is icon pictures

 

G'DAy "braindead ",

Missing Icons on Drive is not uncommon, there are 1000's of reports!
http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&sou...q=f&oq=missing+drive+icon&fp=2b6a54a9ce7131a8

The fact that you were able to backup the data should have told you that there was nothing wrong with the drive? and a simple check, checking the properties on the drive, would have confirmed the drive info.


The fact that the "My Passport" drive showed that the drive had 442Gb of 465GB free, should have suggested and indicated to you that it was still working, and a further simple Run -> chkdsk G: /f/r would have confirmed that all was OK.

As you do have a backup, and if the drive is still under warranty, check with the Manufacturer or Reseller as to correctly reformatting and reestablishing the drive with the pre-installed software that was on it before you formatted it.

I am sure you can think of other ways of replacing the drive if it is still under warranty !

I have had other customers of mine mistakenly do the same thing when only the icon was missing but there was nothing wrong with the drive itself.

pcbugfixer

 

ppg113 thank you for your feedback BUT that diagnostic tool is for this model EXTERNAL drive, so if WD tells me there is a problem i will believe them.
2nd this external drive DOES NOT have an alternate power supply.

@ pcbugfixer the missing icon isn't why i think the Device is messed up its the fact that every time i plug it on my Vista machine i get, a notification about the Drive needing to be checked for errors, and the fact that 46 files were damaged, Also windows able to back up the HDD with normal copy paste, i had to use "Unstoppable Copier" (lost the log but there were a few errors and skipped files)

i tried the WD diagnostic as shown above and nothing worked (even the External USB/FireWire Fat32 Formatting Utility) wasn't working (because of a "11-Cable Test::Read diagnostics sector error" error).

I ended up using widows format utility, and i still got the check disk message from windows at that point I ran the External USB formatting utility and the drives seems to be working properly again.

but im still getting the 11-Cable Test::Read diagnostics sector error message (i tried different cables)
I probably should have mentioned this before but, when i check the SMART disk information, it shows 1 error (still does after all the formatting): Raw read error rate


Edit: this device was bought from the US (I live in Lebanon) so warranty wont help I guess.

 

oh i see, that is odd, but its a wd passport which ya. My bad.

As far as the diag tool, just going from experiance that any tool ive ever used on an external hasnt worked.

Goodluck though

 

G'Day "braindead ",

Is this the drive you have ?
http://www.myshopping.com.au/ZM--383653838_Hard_Drives

 

yes that is the one, http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?modelno=wd5000me&x=0&y=0

 

Ok - start here for more info and help
Main page = http://www.wdc.com/en/company/releases/PressRelease.asp?release=1aa33e8b-c723-4c4f-b23e-dfb5bd21e42f

External Storage - menu - Portable
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=9

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=569

Downloads for the drive
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?wdc_lang=en
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=2&lang=en
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2524

Tools and formatting utility
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=205&level1=&prodid=&modelno=&lang=en


etc -

 

Jeeze, might take me a week to go through all that.

ty for the links pcbugfixer

 

G'Day "braindead ",

you just want the last one

the others are there to show the path to get to the info

obviously this is what you should have had in the 1st place,
# Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows
# External USB/FireWire Fat32 Formatting Utility
# WD Drive Manager (PC)

pcbugfixer

 

this site is a bit confusing (or the Newb in me cant figure it out)

what is the difference between:
WD5000ME
WDBAAA5000ABK

they look identical have the same size and seem to have identical specs

 

Take the one that conforms with your drive, should have been with the paper work or you may have to take the drive out to verify it.

Choosing the wrong one is not good - however the format and other is for that family of drives - again make sure it is correct - most times only a physical check will verify and confirm the correct choice.

 

mine is the WD5000ME, that Drive Manager isnt available for it it seems to be only for the ones that have a firewire connection.

im going to try my luck with WD online support.

going back to my problems:
- 11-Cable Test::Read diagnostics sector error
- Raw Read error Rate

i cant even find a cause

 

ty Arie, youd think that line being on top of the page i would have seen it